"I cried so many tears reading and re-reading your words"
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"Your poems were tearing me open and putting me together at once"
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"As a woman, thank you."
☆
Your book will DEFINITELY be on my shelf, a regular re-read, and I will be telling everyone I know about it."
"I cried so many tears reading and re-reading your words" ☆ "Your poems were tearing me open and putting me together at once" ☆ "As a woman, thank you." ☆ Your book will DEFINITELY be on my shelf, a regular re-read, and I will be telling everyone I know about it."
Don’t Read This Book Alone!
Healing happens in relationship with others. Give someone you love the gift of connection.
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Why you shouldn’t read this book alone:
“To be loved is to be seen.” As women with depression and c-ptsd we often feel misunderstood and hurt when trying to explain how we feel to those we love. The words get stuck in our throat and we go silent. We isolate and stop speaking all together. But isolation is dangerous. It’s also not what we want.
You want you to be seen. heard. understood. So I’m giving you a resource to help explain to people you love how it feels to be you, because you deserve to be seen and loved fully.
religious trauma (The Potter)
How c-ptsd affects relationships (LEAVE.)
Self-sabotage (Saboteur)
People pleasing (Honest!)
Sexual assault (Untouchable)
Leaving co-dependency & enmeshment (Defiance, Faith)
The innate knowing of another’s trauma (Bianca)
Why we stay in unhealthy relationships (Winter)
The cycle of diagnosis, different prescriptions, and self-medicating (diagnosed.)
Generational trauma (10,000)
Choosing to be alone, but feeling isolated (loneliness)
Being scared of death, but more scared to live (2013.)
The unease of feeling better (2023.)
Having a hard time trusting in romantic relationships (Moths, You)
The desperation of being trapped in depression (Hawaii)
How tangible and close death feels (Wake Up, There’s Not Much Time)
Depression (Butterflies., Stuck, Is anyone out there?, To-Do List, damaged goods part I and II)
Masking (Hiding)
Women’s Issues & Rights (two girls, A better life, To be a lady)
…and healing, loving, growing, becoming who you were always meant to be, loving your family and your friends even though you have a hard time expressing that or they’ve hurt you and you’re trying to forgive, moving out of victimhood, leaving parts of you behind in order to step into a new stage of life, & the ups & downs of romantic relationships.
Inside you’ll find poems on:
what women like you are saying
About the Author
“I’m sorry you’ve been there. I’ve been there too. It’s so hard to heal when the damaged goods are you.”
In a world filled with noise and chaos, finding a voice that speaks directly to the soul is rare.
Devinne Schultz is not just a poet but a survivor, a voice for those who struggle to find their own. Based in Austin, TX, she uses her experiences to inspire and uplift others through her writing and speaking engagements.
Early indoctrination in the Christian church and the rise of purity culture ultimately created a tsunami of shame and guilt after she was sexually assaulted at 15 by a leader in her church. By 16, she was suicidal and for the next 10 years struggled with depression and suicide.
Her early assault caused her to become hyper-sexual, seeking out dangerous and non-consensual sex in place of safety, security, and real love. She abused drugs and alcohol to numb the pain and cope with feelings of crippling insecurity, anger, and sadness. Always a writer, she found relief in taking to her journals - filling the pages with the poems you now see on the pages of “what to do with damaged goods.”
After years of therapy and finally hitting rock bottom, Devinne decided she needed to change and desperately sought out the answers to her problems. In 2023, she spoke up publicly for the first time about her experiences and the cycles of sex, shame, and suicidal ideation she had been experiencing for over 15 years. In speaking out, she brought light to the darkness and her shame dissolved. She hopes that in sharing her poems and story with the world, more people are encouraged to be brave and share their stories too.
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Born in San Jose, California and raised in Kalispell, Montana - the defining, constant factor was her conservative Christianity upbringing and absolute deference to God’s will and the church. She was a faithful, joyful and obedient believer as a child. She loved worship and served as a children’s worship leader from ages 10 to 16.
This early indoctrination and the rise of purity culture ultimately created a tsunami of shame and guilt after she was sexually assaulted at 15 by a leader in her church. She believed, wrongfully, that she had caused the assault and blamed herself for "“causing her brother in Christ to stumble”.
By 16, she was suicidal - feeling like she had destroyed her chances of a life full of God’s promises and failed in her singular purpose as a woman - to remain pure for her future husband. The church offered little support, insisting that she was the problem and offering prayer and devotionals in place of therapy or justice.
After graduating high school a year early due to her depression, she dove deeper into the church - departing on a 6 month mission trip through Central America at 17 and attending Calvary Chapel Bible College soon after. Through these experiences she continued to feel the throws of depression, but her deep indoctrination told her that was just the Devil playing tricks with her mind, that she was weak in faith and needed to cry out to God for strength.
However, as her biblical knowledge grew and deeper questions arose, she started to study other religions and doubts about her faith entered her mind. How did Christians know they were right? How were they so sure? “Faith” seemed like the catch-all answer and it was, for her, an inadequate one.
She renounced her faith in 2013 and for the next 10 years struggled with depression and suicide. What was life without faith? Who was she without Christianity?
Everything seemed superficial without the life purpose the church had provided her. Without purpose, she wandered aimlessly through life.
Devinne turned to academia, a familiar dissociating tactic, but each time depression returned she found herself needing to drop out of her studies in order to save her life. She turned to work and threw herself in to her career wholeheartedly, but found that nothing could fill the void. Seeking love in all the wrong places, her early assault caused her to become hyper-sexual, seeking out dangerous and non-consensual sex in place of safety, security, and real love. She abused drugs and alcohol to numb the pain and cope with feelings of crippling insecurity, anger, and sadness.
Always a writer, she found relief in taking to her journals - filling the pages with the poems you now see on the pages of “what to do with damaged goods.”
After years of therapy and finally hitting rock bottom, Devinne decided she needed to change and desperately sought out the answers to her problems. In 2023, she spoke up publicly for the first time about her experiences and the cycles of sex, shame, and suicidal ideation she had been experiencing for over 15 years. In speaking out, she brought light to the darkness and her shame dissolved. She hopes that in sharing her poems and story with the world, more people are encouraged to be brave and share their stories too.